I think I am about 5 for 500 when it comes to successful ideas vs flops. I just watched a documentary about my neighbor Warren Buffett and he talked about how you should brag about your failures and be humble about your successes. I think my new years resolution in 2007 is to be way more humble. Do not think I have some golden touch or something that everything works out great… its just the law of averages.. try enough stuff and something will stick.
Anyway I came up (in about 10 minutes) my top 10 worst ideas to make money that totally were a waste of time and effort (and money in some cases).
And also BTW you cant read this post if you know me in real life and k thx…
- FireFox Forum (firefoxforum.com) – I purchased this site on digitalpoint ($800) after getting some inside information that FireFox was going to team up with Google on a per download affiliate program. Well all that happened and I think I made about 50$ the first year. FLOP
- BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!” or “Babys heart beat starts today” ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site was about 95% completed (about a 1500$ investment).Then a very close friend of the family had a miscarriage about 15 weeks into her pregnancy and told us about how she had signed up for all these baby websites and now they keep emailing her stuff and she breaks down and cries every time…. I just wanted no part of that… FLOP
- Pimp My Blog – I thought this was going to be teh win. I mean… you want to pimp out your blog right ? I registered pimpmyblog.org but it was burning my ass that someone owned pimpmyblog.com. I hate making a site when I do not own the .com. Sure you can do good without owning the .com but they are always going to mooch off of your hard work…. so I HAD to own it and after about 3 weeks of haggling with this guy I paid $2,000.00 for the domain.
- I made a forum with Vbulletin and had big plans to implement wordpress templates and all kinds of cool blogging tools but just never got around to it =p. FLOP
- Omaha-Used-Cars.com – Now here we go! This is easy. Just make a used car site and charge dealers a .25cent per car listing fee right ? ehhh none interested… FLOP
- SMS Text Dating textdating.com/texting.com – I was soooooooo sure this one was going to be it! The concept is simple basically you subscribe to this dating website. Make a profile then you could send a message to the person from the website to there mobile phone without having to know there phone number. I had this totally done and nobody every signed up… FLOP
- St. Marry’s Bar & Grill – Ok this has nothing to do with the internet. After the Hooters closed down in Lincoln I tried to re-open it then when that did not work out I thought about making a restaurant called St. Marrys where it was like a church and the waitresses dressed like catholic school girls and like the nuns would be the managers and spank the waitresses if they were bad?!? Yes I know bad idea and I never really pursued it…. I like in one of the most conservative catholic communities in the country so no way it would fly… and yes i know im going straight to hell.
- 2 Topless Chix In A Ferrari Cross Country – What would get more looks then a brand new ferrari f430 ? what if 2 topless girls were driving it cross country ? what if you could buy advertising on the car ? seemed like a good idea… then it did not.
- Ads Or Not - Simple concept. There is 5 ads on a webpage only one of them is NOT REALLY A AD! Each time you successfully spot the fake ad you get some money built up into your account. – I had issues finding advertisers who were down for this =P FLOP
- ShoeMoney SEO Contest - I thought it would be fun contest to see if someone could outrank me for shoemoney. While it attracted a lot of white hat SEO’s it was the blackhats that really dominated… but the methods they used cause me so much problems. Id like to not relive that.
- ShoeMoney Petroleum Company -(I cant believe im actually telling these in public)
Ok Follow me here
I want to purchase a Gas Station and Give away Free Gas
The catch is like the gas would come out really slow and also you would be limited as to how much you could get per week. (Like max 50 gallons a week).
How do I make money ? EASY – I would setup paintball guns around the gas station with webcams that would let people from the internet take shots at the people filling up there cars with gas. You could charge per shot or a xxxx amounts of shots per month for a set fee. PROBLEM – I talked to a city council member about this and he told me there was a “no flying ordinance” or something rule within city limits however I could maybe do it in the country…
Anyway….. thats all for now my worst money making ideas.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2472 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 538 comments… read them below or add one }
Number 1 may be one of the funniest business ideas I have heard in a long long time.
xoxo
Shoelover
#1 is funny, talking about crazy expensive at about $3.75 a gallon
The thing is, people would actually go! Heck I would go. It’s free gas. The best thing is that then you could set up an automatic car wash at your gas station and charge a premium for it.
Number 1 is definitely the greatest idea here. No doubt!!!!
Funny Indeed…except I dont know how long it would be legal to have your customers shot with a paintball lol- the thought is hillarious though.
Hi Shoelover. Your name suggests that you are a big fan of shoemoney. Well I too think that 1st one was funny but I enjoyed the 4th one the most.
And a $800 investment for a website that earned $50 the whole year has really warned me. I was going to buy such site at sitepoint.
Thx a lot for this post ShoeMoney. Now a know what I don’t need to do to earn money online. Thx again.
Regards
Laksh
http://makemoneyonline-withme.blogspot.com/
I do not think that this one was funny. If this will get success than we were following him. But anyway sometime it fails too.
Ads or not sounds like a winner to me. May I offer $20 seed money?
I say.. You are just too funny..
ShoeMoney Petroleum Company , Now thats funny
I have an idea-How about an internet dunk tank- hot chicks in bikinis- $10 for 2 shots,
Think of the media sensation -Contact ME
That last one was a fricken excelent idea!! I would have paid for that.
Number 10 sounds like a pretty decent return on investment. 6.25% sure beats bank deposits. How has the firefox forum performed since then?
But what about the government and other legal rules as well.
Laughing out loud at the Shoemoney Petroleum Company idea! I hope somebody does it.
The petroleum company had me nearly wetting my pants laughing so hard. What a great warped idea.
The other weakness though is the trial lawyers. Can you imagine the disclaimer that you would have to have before anyone could enter the “fueling arena”"?
oops change #10 to #1 my bad
the gas station is soooo cool lol!
i bet this could be one very succesfull thingy, not for long but to make a nice amount of money, but needs good planning with tv camera teams and stuff.
Or maybe people must get their gas naked? ^^
Hey Shoe! Very courageous post! Some of those are freakin’ hilarious… but I think a couple are actually pretty valid ideas that may have just needed a bit of an extra marketing push…
f+ck i hate you so much right now!
Yeah some were really good one like texting one. It should be worked and if this one get the start than this would be the big thing now.
Goood to see that you had alot of flops too. I thought the cell sms dating thing would be a good idea. They have a couple azoogle offers that do pretty well doing this.Cell Flirt and some new Playboy cell dating thing. But the gas station paintball thing would be the best , i would love to sign up on a website and shoot paintballs at people. I think you need to give that one another shot
Yeah I do feel that this one was a great idea and if that wont work out that time than he should start now again.
Man mobiles are increasing at very fast pace and we should capitalise it as well.
Stick with Nun restaurant, it could be a goer =P
and PimpMyBlog ain’t dead yet. You could revive it yet.
Not so sure about the Petrol Paintball though, possiblities for disaster are many and varied. In the words of Wayne’s world : Ka-boom!
I got some southerners, to be politically correct, looking into the Petroleum company idea. That stuff will work for at least a quarter or two.
Take care Shoe!
ShoeMoney Petroleum Company.. pure genius
#1 is genius
The gas station idea is priceless. I keep picturing housewives walking through their front door covered with paint.
Do not think nasty … lollzz
Please Shoe – bring on the gas station. I would love paying to peg random people with paintballs via a webcam….
Great post shoe. People need to know that the vast majority of businesses fail, and that the failure of a business does not mean that you are a failure. If you keep trying, eventually you’ll find something that works.
Dude the Ferrari thing was totally my bad idea!
ok the ferrari thing was your idea but the topless chix was me
Lolzzz … another great humour from you.
yes i know im going straight to hell
No … first you’re being spanked by a nun. Then you’re going straight to hell!
SHOEMONEYPETROLEUMCOMPANY.COM is available!
Man, if I had 8 bucks I would snatch that in a heartbeat. Too bad my credit cards just got hit again for my monthly subscriptions to foot fetish sites. . .
My worst idea for making money? “Investing” in baseball cards when I was 8.
Its nice to see that you were start investing at the age of 8 and from that moment you have learned at lot.
Do you think part of the problem with #10 was that most people going to the forum already had Firefox?
thnx for posting these. what a hoot. The gas station thing would be too cool. But that should be done in southern California I think.
Nice post,
Worse ideas have worked.
I’d be willing to pay to see the topless chicks in the ferrari :p
ahh also,
you’ve told us your worst now we want to know your most successfull.
Hi Jeremy,
thank you for your great post. After meeting you in San Jose it is still impressing to me how open you tell your ups and downs.
Keep on rocking!
Pascal (without metal cards)
Try to imagine the topless chix in a Ferrari purchasing gas on ShoeMoney Gas Station…
Try to imagine the topless chicx in a Ferrari on ShoeMoney Gas Station… wow!
Pimp my blog totally rocks! Except the badge no longer works.
Wow its good to hear that you’ve had flops. It’s too easy in the celebrity worship culture we have to only focus on the results of hard work and not the work itself (and the failures that go with it).
Thanks Shoe!
You could vary #1 depending on station so although the Shoemoney Paintball Petroleum Station would be your flagship you could open a few new ones:
Shoemoney Russian Roulete Petroleum Station – You either get free gas or free sugar, you just won’t know until you get a few miles down the road
Shoemoney Penny Over Petroleum Station – You have to put in even amounts like $10 – If you accidentaly do a $10.01 the flame thrower is engaged
Hahaha dude i lolled at yours haha
haha!
The gas station is so completely out there that it just has to work, even on the publicity it would generate alone..
As for the other sites, after doing the same for the last couple of years I’ve come to realize that the idea and design doesn’t really matter much. If you don’t get blogged about by the right people, or if you’re not in the San Francisco “in-group” then the chances are you’ll just get drowned out by all the other noise
Damn ! THIS IS A GREAT IDEA !
If i would have money for this i would start it right away as i cannot see any problem making this business in Romania here.
Hey Shoe, maybe you wanna invest in Romania ? I think you will not have enough gas
I think you missed your calling as a reality tv show producer.
Shoe, those are innovative. I like your thinking. The Gas station would be a blast, literally. I’m sure there is some poor neglected gas station in the middle of nowhere waiting to be the next “Field of Dreams? location…LOL
Dude those are some sweet ideas. Actually, what people need to realize is that you can launch 20 good ideas and only have 1 gain enough momentum to make decent cash. Its all about throwing a ton of ideas against the wall to see what will stick…
Wohh, your a neighbour with Warren Buffet????
anyways the last idea was great, but I dunno about the paintballs shooting in a high concentration gasoline area.. And also the people would need to wear masks or something
actually warren lives in omaha and I used to live about 10 blocks from him… close enough =P
hahaha nice one
What are your best ideas?
Does he read your blog?
Woo boy Shoe, I almost spit my drink out when I got to your petroleum company idea. That’s too funny. What’s even funnier is knowing how popular that would be.
It reminds me of those remote control hunting sites. Ever see those? Yilkes!
On a more serious note – posts like this show that behind most success there’s a large trail of ______ fill in the blank.
I don’t even want to go there… lol
- Dave
I used to hate you, just because I was jealous of your money making schemes, but all that has changed after reading this post. You’re not a superhuman, who could’ve believe that. This post has just bought you a new reader. Thanks for the laughs Jeremy!
Jeremy, first of all … it’s entertaining as well as educational to read a post like this one.
I think that if everyone would share their flops, business man and women would benefit 50X more than if they’d go to every seminar and read every book on marketing.
Here is an idea …. BusinessFlops.
oops … already registered that one.
The Petroleum Company is a hoot but I’m sure there are regulations about discharging projectiles around gas pumps. Just a hunch.
A better idea is to offer free bikini car washes and let people take shots at the girls.
I’m glad I am not the only one to have major flops. Misery loves company and http://www.promotiontrader.com was certainly a miserable flop (yes, it’s being redirected now).
The idea was that people could join and post service trades like “ISAPI expert will write regular expressions for your website in exchange for a custom site design from a creative website designer” etcetera. But I got more attempted link spam than actual posts. The problem was I didn’t have the time – at the time – to really give the project the push it needed.
Lesson: Unless you are willing to commit on a project, don’t bother. There are too many websites out there for you to half-ass it and expect to succeed.
Kudos for telling us about your flops. Actually, the 2nd most popular post on my blog was about my Top 4 Failures as an Entrepreneur.
People love reading about other people failing. It’s the same like watching a celebrity crash and burn, or reality TV.
Nice job putting it out there.
man, i really like the paintball idea. I could probably get away with that in a hick town in Florida. Funny stuff.
Brilliant post, seriously made my day. Someone in Vegas has to run with your Catholic schoolgirl/restaurant idea.
Hey Shoe, I don’t know if you will read the 57th comment, but I think some of your ideas are good, just need a little tweaking!
* 9 – BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!? or “Babys heart beat starts today? ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site was about 95% completed (about a 1500$ investment).
Then a very close friend of the family had a miscarriage about 15 weeks into her pregnancy and told us about how she had signed up for all these baby websites and now they keep emailing her stuff and she breaks down and cries every time…. I just wanted no part of that… FLOP
*******Sounds like a great idea…..here’s a fix. Everytime the babycalc would send an email, it would require that the end user do something like confirm that they received the email by clicking on a link in the email or a visit to the website for articles related to the fetus development at that stage. If there was no interaction by the end user
after 1 or 2 emails, the account would be frozen and would require a visit to the web site to restore.
* 7 – Omaha-Used-Cars.com – Now here we go! This is easy. Just make a used car site and charge dealers a .25cent per car listing fee right ? ehhh none interested… FLOP
******Problem with this idea is that anyone can build this web site. To convince dealers to pay to list you would have to have a lot of traffic already coming to the web site. Something that would take time to build.
* 6 – SMS Text Dating textdating.com/texting.com – I was soooooooo sure this one was going to be it! The concept is simple basically you subscribe to this dating website. Make a profile then you could send a message to the person from the website to there mobile phone without having to know there phone number. I had this totally done and nobody every signed up… FLOP
*****This sounds like a great concept. How long did you try it? Also, marketing is a big key. You would need to come up with some sort of viral message to generate word of mouth. Now with Youtube, you could create a video showing a guy and gal using the service, but make it funny.
* 5 – St. Marry’s Bar & Grill – Ok this has nothing to do with the internet. After the Hooters closed down in Lincoln I tried to re-open it then when that did not work out I thought about making a restaurant called St. Marrys where it was like a church and the waitresses dressed like catholic school girls and like the nuns would be the managers and spank the waitresses if they were bad?!? Yes I know bad idea and I never really pursued it…. I like in one of the most conservative catholic communities in the country so no way it would fly… and yes i know im going straight to hell.
***How about a little modification of the original concept? Instead of bar and grill, make it an upscale mens club.
The waitresses/dancers would be dressed like catholic school girls and for a fee, men visitors could “buy” a yardstick ruler and smack the dancers. Make money from cover, rulers and liquor! When local churches complain
and try to shut you down, free publicity and more people want to come!
* 4 – 2 Topless Chix In A Ferrari Cross Country
What would get more looks then a brand new ferrari f430 ? what if 2 topless girls were driving it cross country ? what if you could buy advertising on the car ? seemed like a good idea… then it did not.
***How about a little modification of the original concept? Put webcams all over the car and hook it up using wifi that would broadcast video “live” from car to your SUBSCRIPTION web site. Still put ads on car, but more money would be made from web site with Google maps showing where the car and the girls were. People would stand on side of road with cardboard signs (Like OJ Simpson Bronco “chase”).
* 1 – ShoeMoney Petroleum Company -
Ok Follow me here -
I want to purchase a Gas Station and Give away Free Gas
The catch is like the gas would come out really slow and also you would be limited as to how much you could get per week. (Like max 50 gallons a week).
How do I make money ? EASY – I would setup paintball guns around the gas station with webcams that would let people from the internet take shots at the people filling up there cars with gas. You could charge per shot or a xxxx amounts of shots per month for a set fee. PROBLEM – I talked to a city council member about this and he told me there was a “no flying ordinance? or something rule within city limits however I could maybe do it in the country…
***How about a little modification of the original idea? Still giving away FREE gas. Go to a gas station and work out a deal with the owner. Offer to allow him to give away free gas in exchange for putting advertising signs at the pumps advertising your sponsor. Then using the gas pump software, develop software that would randomly choose someone pumping gas that would receive a FREE $50 gas card. Gas station owner wins with more business, you win with selling advertising to your sponsors and drivers win with free gas.
I could have told you about PimpMyBlog, but hey … you didn’t ask me
Haha I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that gas station part. I’d take the f430, naked chicks inside or not! That’s my favorite car at the moment.
Now where did I put that extra 250g’s?
Shoe, can you post your 10 best ideas that worked? Okay, maybe not your best 10, since there would be some stuff you would want to keep for yourself. Maybe your best 11-20 ideas?
I love it! You have great strength of character to be willing to share so many flops and in such a humorous and light-hearted way!
I’m with Farmer77….I’d love to read about some of your “great ideas” that were not flops and why you feel they were not flops.
Somebody’s got to make the gas station site. I mean just think of traffic you could get with a idea as crazy as that.
I think the pimpmyblog -idea was rather good. Instead of giving tools to create a blog I think they should do like the so. They would select weekly a blog and hire a professional web designer and some blogosphere guru and direct the site with huge amounts of traffic. I would visit the site weekly to see new pimped sites.
Your efforts on the SMS text msg dating concept have sparked my imagination. I have an alternative use that may revitalize your idea, lets chat…
great read, well worth my time =] thank you for sharing.
I love the gas station idea, but I see why it would never work.
But what about the same idea with the slow pumps and all, except show commercials to the customers as they’re standing there. I’d definately watch commercials for free gas.
Nice for posting here so we would keep in mind not to follow up on them.
I love these flops shoemoney. I have couple of them I will shortly in my blog..Keep up the great work!
I can’t believe I didn’t see this post before. That gasoline idea is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read online. Brilliant!
LOL – the diner with nuns is hilarious. As is the gas station one.
Seriously though – everyone has shit ideas. I reckon if you can find one good one in a hundred you’re laughing.
One of my worst ones was trying to rent out fans to offices in the summer when we had a heatwave. By the time I’d got the flyers made and delivered the sunshine had gone – it only lasted about three or four days. We just don’t have much luck with weather over here in the uk.
lol we all have our sites we look back on and shed a tear for, but they made us what we are today. remembering the quality of my first website makes me cringe on how good i thought it was, but without it i wouldnt be as good as i am today (in my opinion lol)
those are the kind of ideas that one has when laying in bed late at night. the next morning you wake up and think about it more… eventually the fire burns out when you realize it won’t work.
Thanks for sharing. It gives me hope to see that you finally found a niche that worked for you. Perhaps mine is coming soon.
Thanks for sharing. It gives me hope that I will find my niche as well .
Oh wow, not often i cry lauging at a blog but I love this post! The gaosline idea just kills me! Maybe put the garage next to the nuns diner…
I am still laughing at the SEO contest. That is great…
HAHAHAHHAHHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
ShoeMoney Petroleum Company has to be the funniest idea encountered. Hilarious. But you could have made something out of the Text Dating idea. Sounds valid.
were you really dieting heavy when you came up with the ShoeMoney Petroleum Company? LOL — Well, none of us are perfect.
Funny post! It gives the rest of us hope that we need to just keep trying new things.
#1 was great! I think you may have had insurance issues, though. No one would have given you coverage knowing all the people buying gas would sue you for new paint jobs after being hit!
Some crazy ideas, I beleive catholic school girls would make you a lot of money
The gas station idea is great, it would definitely work and be sure to generate tons of publicity.
Your text dating idea should have worked, but perhaps it was not marketed correctly.
Haha- very nice
Great Post! It is nice to have someone talking about some of the failures they have experienced, along with the success. People always want to give up completely everytime they experience a failure. The truth is, you may fail 1000 times, but it only takes one time of being right to be a millionaire
The gas station idea is by far the best idea i’ve ever heard for use of webcams in conjunction with paintball guns. I would completely buy into that project.
I found out about you in sabahan.com
Well crazy people get crazy results right? Not to mention the crazy income
These are effing great! #1 is awesome and in regards to #5, that would go over nicely in Phoenix. http://www.thelibraryusa.com The library is doing well (as far as I can tell), and I’d be at St. Mary’s all the time. Maybe I should post a list of my top 10 failure ideas, like when I decided to host a free image hosting site on GoDaddy hosting and GoDaddy didn’t enforce their bandwidth limit with a cap. Traffic was great, but the site came down when I saw the $2,700 hosting bill.
The #1 is a great idea. Should try it in some country with less red tape
I can imagine this totally happening on one of those supercrazy japanese gameshows / hidden cameras.
Kudos for pointing out your failures! I must also state that I really admire your persistence to keep going and trying. After all, it can now be clearly seen it paid off huh? Great inspiration, thanks
What happened with the SEO contest?
That’s good Idea At Last .
hummm.
Any way There are many FLOP story Behind every succesful Person .
Best of luck
ShoeMoney Petroleum Company – LOL if you ever figure out how to legally do this I want to invest…
#4 – topless anything has been done to death, not that anyone is complaining!
No kidding. I’m pretty much rolling on the floor.
The babyCalc and petroleum is very GOOD idea…Keep it up!
–blog for dream–
nice ns ns…
Everyone has their share of failures and mistakes. As it is said that success was never achieved without failure (maybe just a lucky few might have escaped this failure path). The important thing is not to give up when you fail and still go on. That is the test of character and strength.
Do you need Investors for the paintball gas station idea? Please get in tough!!! Ha… Can’t believe you got around to this. The wrong spark and there goes everything.
The more bad ideas you have the better your chances of a good one
I agree with the thing about the forum, i ended up paying way over the odds for one cause I thought I could market it properly, but it turns out I can’t and there isn’t any money in it…
I am MAD. You stole all my best Ideas.
Cheers
Oh man, I laughed my ass off at #1. Not because it was a bad idea, but because I pictured it in my mind and thought that I’d like to see gas stations like that.
haha, i liked it a lot. sounds like a sick reality show.
u sure about that? sometimes it discourages you into not coming up with anything.
Make a gas station and try to low the prizes of galons, i will come there every day then
Some great ideas actually, but you got enough money that it really wont affect you too much… lucky man!
Some of your ideas may have taken off with follow though, but your rich, who cares!!
LOL your Shoemoney Petroleum Company idea is the best one!
hey shoe… what about new ideas?
Number 1 is great… It could definitely be done outside city limits. I could think of a couple different ideas with this business model. lol
SOme humm interesting ideas lol. Im just wondering how did you come up with all that?
I would pay to shoot paintballs at people filling up with free gas! You can sell them full body plastic covers too. Woohoo! Please open it!
Well, and I have a friend coming up with what I thought to be the most stupid ideas
Anyway, I like the one with the gas station. And the one with the ferrari, of course
“paintball guns shooting at the people getting their gas! ”
Now I’ve heard it all! :p
It’s really funny, but your worst idea regarding the car — well, check out THIS post … by the way this is not my site, but a post I came across earlier today
Margaret
Common problem with ideas—they are actually more like seeds, but most people treat them like trees. You need to start with an idea, develop it, combine it with other ideas, get at what’s right and wrong in the principle behind the idea, develop the principle, etc.
But most people just take an idea and run with it. Rich Whittle has the right start, but need to go even further. Keep an idea diary and expand ideas over time for months.
Why did #7 fail? Was it a flat $0.25 per vehicle per day? week? I ask because I’m in the process of launching http://wheelsmart.tv – kind of like a cross between youtube and autotrader where people can advertise their own vehicles for sale using videos they shoot and post on youtube, but I want to charge dealers for professionally produced videos. I was going to keep the rate at the same as the local autotrader rags.
What a laugh fest! I loved them all, but agree, a couple really could make some money with the right marketing! I have actually had quite a few ideas, luckily my wife is good at making sure I don’t throw away any money on something I haven’t fully thought through.
Actually I recently came up with an EXcellent idea, and I am sure it would go over great, but then again….
Ron Killian
LOL.
Worst Idea for me was probably my reality tv show idea, “Two Babies, One Bottle.” You ever seen two under two kids one at home and the other is a guest. when the guest starts playing with a toy, the hosting baby usually gets pissed, and they can be quite vicious… I even pitched it to Steve Spira, the executive vp of global biz affairs of warner bros. whose words about it were, “Dude, you are twisted!” and than explained no one wants to watch a show with babies crying…
My best idea ever, “Bikini Realty, motto: Actions between consenting adults is not the responsibility of Bikini Realty.
It’s simply brilliant, Sex Sells, so why not let Sex sell houses ?! We have hot chicks in bikinis as our realtors doing apt. rentals for college dudes, and condo sales for rich bachelors and such….
My Twin and I, come up with innovative ideas all of the time, at least we think they are. We are young entrepenuers that are getting our feet wet in th internet industry. Trigeia.com is our first site and i think the initial start up weve spent is about $30,000 and it isnt even live yet, Hopefully this works. But then i think to my self isnt anything possible even if you think it might be the dumbest idea on planet earth. They say “Persistance make the impossible, possible. The Possible, likely and the likely, definate.” I guess you just have to keep moving forward.
Twin
God hahaha…
I feel like I am going through these same motions. Never being able to get the idea right and unable to build up the traffic that wants my services. Blah
Just gotta keep trying till I get it right I guess.
Haha, love #1 – it’s nice to see that even the big guys still make human mistakes.
~ Dave
hahaha.rolling hahhaha on hahah the florr i ha am ha.nice hahahaha post.
lol .. No.1 was the best and sorry for No. 9
Hillariously creative… Wow. I like St. Mary’s and the gas station.
St. Marry’s Bar & Grill –
1. I just wet myself laughing.
2. I’d LOVE to see this…of course dress standards would apply for customers…they have to dress like vicars/popes/priests etc. and they take it in turns for lap dances from the catholic school girls/nuns…
Hail Mary and god bless you Jeremy Shoemaker.
i think first one is really good. you should try it.
last one made me laught :p
I read this post again. I love it!
Number 1 was really weird but I (sadly) would pay if you actually did it. That would be freakin awesome.
Get the petrol by the boot!!
Muhahaha!
This is encouraging. Sometimes we “little people” don’t realize the things that really successful people went through to be successful. I like Benamin Franklin’s quote, “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
That would be awesome!
Haha. Yeah. Seriously, I LOLed hard on the last one. It would have been a real cool show. A lot of those kind of shows kinda click especially with all the weird shows popping around these days.
The possibilities for disaster makes it the more interesting as a show. Just think of all the bloopers you could get.
I would’ve thought the text dating thing would be a good idea, too.
Shows how much I know, I guess
iam a very happy to see some body who giving the people how to create a money iam a very poor money but know iam the way that i can create a money iam living in nairobi my nationality is somalian and iam student so iam collecting these days ways that i can create a money so if u have more idea contac with me dhegaweyne86@yahoo.com
ahaha… i think i am gonna sell my self on ebay….
I have made many home business mistakes in the past, but running things the way you want is priceless!
pretty much? you roll on that floor! I assume you need the exercise
———-
The gas station idea is interesting tho. Free gas would be huge and interest a lot of people. You would just have to have a clever way to somehow make ~$150 per person per week… and that sounds pretty difficult
Okey! great, please send me some tips, http://www.money-on-blog-easy.blogspot.com
You are telling your failures in public, that’s great. But as you know we all have failures.
Interesting list. Nice to see other people’s flops. I almost fell out of my chair when I read number 5.
Come to Brazil, with this money you did the party easily… =D (Using Google Translate)
That’s the way to go up, trough failures
Never mind, we all make a failure here and there. Keep it up
however the best idea….get a job
Get A Job!? You need a refresher course in becoming a real MAN, man. Creating what I call lifestyle by design… well I guess you will never know until you run your own home business!
You should revisit the gas station-paintball idea. I’ve laughed for three days. Oh, and please put it in the town my ex-wife lives in!
Shoe your really honest.. He he.. anyway people do learn by mistakes. Thats normal. Anyhow you have been the best even with few foolish things he he… So you can be happy about it.
The baby update site could have worked for you, if your relative hadn’t had a miscarriage. Some of these ideas can work for you now, if you give them a try.
Page bookmarked for later use. Thanks:)
You could have sold idea #5 I bet you could get millions with that one :p
the paintball gas station love the idea. You should put one in saginaw, michigan
Idea 8 could’ve been well worth it, but it was just a flop because you never got around it … idea is still good
my worst idea for making money was chopping trees down around my house and building bird houses out of them and selling them online LOL!
that was when I was half asleep and waking up when it sounded like a great idea tho.
Better idea, purchase a building and set up paint ball guns. People pay you to run the gauntlet and if they make it without getting hit then they get a prize or some of their money back. People all over the world could log on and you could set up a whole slew of paintball guns that online members pay for to shoot. You win either way. Damn good idea, dont you think?
Damn, and I thought I was creative! : )
Shooting paintballs at people feeling their cars with gas? That one’s a little out there or are you just being sarcastic?
They say on average people come up with 6 or 7 ideas a year that could make millions, unfortunately most never attempt to bring those ideas to fruition.
At least you attempted some things, failed, and learned from your mistakes. That is probably how you made it to where you are today. You keep plugging away and probably learning new things even today.
Paintball Gas Station (dot) com is available I think. hahaha
~Terry
What do you think about the future of internet business and making money online? What is next?
okay i thank good but i also think it bad
recognize the symbols of militarry security
The free gas idea I like a lot. Though I think that your current business works better.
It was bad. Ya
i AM not little.
The firefox….Is it genuine
Does it say Ads or not. I guess he did.
I think the worst advertising idea is that of Video Egg. And that program(can’t remember name) that would load an ad audio everytime a page loads.
And the greatest thing is that we admit it. I know some people that never accept their mistakes. Like the Apple.
I laughed out loud………..nearly fall off my chair laughing
You can’t be serious about the gas station???????
And I thought I was sick… Funny stuff!
The gas station cracked me up. And I thought I was nuts… Funny stuff!
Man I’ve had some pretty terrible ideas myself – I can certainly relate
you need to put the bong or the one-hitter down…I know because we have had the same type of crazy thoughts the only difference is that you possibly have the money to even try those wacky ideas…how about the restaurant that is flying over disney in orlando…how about eating your food at 150 ft in the air…and some crazy ass folks are going to eat up there…dinnerinthesky.com and it is like 12k for 8 hours…are you kidding me…check it out
Don’t let the paintball idea die, Shoe…….don’t let it die…
Well, thanks for sharing! I’ll stick with the things that are working for me!
The most funny thing among them is the petrol pump lol.hahahah
Are you sure? Any of them will work actually?
Everyone has. Even I had, but I havent shared them in public yet
#9 still would have worked, though. I had a baby in June last year, and my wife and I signed up for a similar website. We got weekly updates, and it was real cool to read this stuff. You should have stuck to that.
#5 is my favorite actually, but i don’t know what will customers think while you spank a waitress at kitchen
I was going to make my fortune selling energy drinks. So I took a dozen samples around to a friends place and asked him if some of his friends would be interested in trying the product as well as seeing the business concept.
My friend had a bit of a drug problem at the time and thought I might be able to help him out. I arrived with my cooler full of my perfectly chilled energy drinks to find my friend and 4 of his friends (who also had drug issues) totally smacked out and just not on the planet.
They gulped my energy drinks down and said how great and energy filled they felt before two of them fell asleep on the floor and my friend threw up !!
Next idea please.
Abstracting from everything, these are niche IDEAS , and definitely would work for somebody, the only question is “how well” and would they reach a critical mass?
This is quite possibly one of the best blog posts I have come across in months. Thank you : ) I have been craving a good post like this one. Well said, I am quite the entrepreneur as well and I find myself buying into domains, websites and ideas on a daily basis. I always think the next one I try is gonna be IT! When I was reading your list, I am almost got confused and thought that you were talking about me. Been there, we should start a website with all of our domains and ideas that didn’t pan out. We could sell them for a couple of bucks each – LOL. Are you in Shoe? He He, okay I will let this dream go. Bravo!!!
I just started a website about failing online.
It is a fairly new site but I am looking for user contributed stories as well as publishing my own embarrassing stories of online failure. Feel free to submit yours.
Great article!
hi,
what a nice post about enterprenourship ..try to invent new idea..i have found some free money making products offer ..you can also try these offers ..go to http://mywebmoney.wordpress.com/category/money-making-products/ try this ..only for US
i almost felt sorry for the baby calculator project. it seemed it had a future until a friend of yours had a mis carriage
Yup those are some really crappy ideas…
Yeah I’m no stranger to zany schemes either. Though I’m not going to post them here, I’ll wait until my site’s as popular and well known as this place!
Great read though – gives hope to us all.
I just wish more people would fess up like this. I’d love to read Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch or Richard Branson’s “I dunno what I was thinkin’!” files.
I think it would do us all good to know that sometimes even a golden goose can lay a rotten egg.
At the same time there’s a valuable lesson to be learned – nothing ventured nothing gained right? The very fact that you took risks like that in the first place is the reason you’re successful today.
Hilarious – good stuff!
hey simply nice, and it tell us about our behavioural economics on money making.
thanks
The St. Mary’s idea? Yeah, you’re going to hell for that one. I like the topless Ferrari idea, and the free gas one? You know someone could make a fortune off that right about now in America…just have people inundated with advertising while they sit there and take 10-15 minutes to fill up! Actually, what if you you just charge less for gas…say $1.50 – $2.00/gal? I bet you people will do that! You mind if I borrow that idea from you?
Funny stuff … i doubt most people would even share these thanks
You sure had some offbeat ideas over the years….the catholic schoolgirl idea is something that would really appeal to some of my more colorful friends. My personal favourite has to be the fuel station idea. Paintballs, webcams and gasoline…hmmmm…methinks a free topless carwash with attached webcams could be interesting too….server crashing potential actually.
Those were the worst ideas Ive ever seen! LOL The No:1 was most funny. Still laughing man!
Those are funny ideas but some seem to be ok if you put more effort in it. Nice post
I know I am late to this party but I thought number 1 was so much fun. Shows just how far your mind reaches for ideas. I still like the Ferarri idea.
BTW- I came across this post when googling “money making ideas”, you were number 2.
I still laugh after re-reading #1 over and over.
I like the gas station Idea. I would have paid to shoot someone.
thanks for sharing. i think some of the ideas are good! haha.
oh,lord, this is propably the funniest things I’ve heard in years.just crax me up.
actually I reckon some might work if you keep do for a year or 2.
these were soo funny especially the last one lol
First of all, I just admire you for your business ideas…I mean they say the best business owners come up with the whackiest ideas…i mean…who would have known Google would have been as big as it is now…or even Youtube?
I think…no in fact…I know you will be even bigger than you are now. The biggest entrepreneurs failed at least 50 times before they came up with the right venture…wow, i wish i was as ambitious as you..but keep the whacky ideas up!LOL
To find out how to dramatically increase your online sales with copywriting secrets visit http://www.copywritingincome4life.com
erica
Lol, i really liked number 10. I’d imagine one shot would be very expensive. And then, you’d have to deal with the car insurance companies
.
So I see the best of the achievers have done the worst of the mistakes… I am having my share of mistakes and I see that I can become an achiever too!!
Those are some painful ideas indeed, particularly the BabyCalc at number 9. You can’t win them all I guess. Laughing my head off at St. Marry’s Bar & Grill. What were you thinking?!?
Let me know when #1 is ready to go. LMAO!
I totally digg the St. Mary’s Grill idea. It would fly somewhere here in Michigan, most likely Ann Arbor or Detroit. I could also see it happening in New York, Detroit, and San Francisco. I don’t see it happening anywhere else though…but the restaurant would definitely get my business!
We once considered buying a church and turning it into a club. Forget sacrilegious. It would have been fun!
With buying other site perhaps it will be worked. Sometime the idea of the original site and buyer site different, also with result, definitely different.
Shoemoney Petroleum Company is great. deserves the leadership of its top10, very funny
I am sooo glad you put this out jeremy. everyone thinks people just slip and fall into success as if they slipped and fell on shit you know? they don’t realize that we really have to work at it and most of all, we have to try ten things that fail before we see the upsides to all that effort… thanks, its nice to see “related pain?”
ahah, it’s an awesome read..
you really have cool ideas indeed.
ahahah, this is awesome to read.. you really have some cool ideas..indeed.
Haha. I want to know more about the Shoemoney SEO contest.
OMG – St. Marry’s Bar & Grill – I had a similar idea in Montreal but it was when a church closed down. I thought it would be great to have the bartender dressed like a Vicor and the waitresses as school girls on roller blades.
Wow-do you have an open and creative mind! You are a true inspiration. I am preparing for a seminar next week and one of the topics I am covering is breaking past fear. What you revealed in this post is that you are insanely competent at this-Kudos to you! Do you mind if I use the Gas Station story (w/o using your name) in my seminar?
Wow, what a twisted and creative mind you have. You are truly an inspiration for having the guts to share. Thank you. I am preparing for a seminar next Saturday, and one of the topics is breaking past fear. You have proven by virtue of writing this post that you are a King at this. Do you mind if I use your Gas Station Story (w/o using your name) at my seminar?
The Gas Station idea made me laugh I would pay a few buck to take the shots but i don’t think you would make any money after pay for gas even if it was just 2 bucks a gallon.
Please share your best ideas
Thanks for opening up and sharing these “failed” ideas. I had a good laugh, but it also helps to know that everyone hits and misses… It’s the endurance to keep trying new ideas that helps us hit goldmines!
Maybe some of them will work now.
Dude, those were HILARIOUS. The St. Mary’s made me call my mom and ask her what she thought. She dropped the phone. Very awesome.
the no.1 is so interesting.we are f u-cking money but our ass is burned. making money online is not easy right? every of us try hard to find out how to do is the easiest way ,it is a long run. and just keep running ,running
It makes me feel good to know that someone like you can have bad ideas perhaps it won’t depress me too much when I make a mistake. When are you putting up the “winning ideas” that did fly? Maybe you already have but I’m new to this site.
Giving free gas on gas station is the most out of the world idea I have ever seen.
Great post. I think some of those ideas ( babycalc & restaurant) could have done well.
Can you post some of your more successful ideas as someone mentioned?
Lisa K
Traffic Coordinator
http://www.coolmediaplacement.com
We Drive Traffic! Traffic Drives Results!
The ideas about the bricks&mortar business were really outlandish.
the gas station idea just was LOL
The petrol station was hilarious, you have to be mad to come up with that.
Seems like you had a fun time! Well I guess smart bloggers also have their issues. :p
Well, buying domain names has not been something that I was very successful, so I can relate to what you are saying.
I would love to know about the shoe money seo contest! :p
The gas station idea is great, it would definitely work and be sure to generate tons of publicity.
Your text dating idea should have worked, but perhaps it was not marketed correctly.
The gas station idea is great, it would definitely work and be sure to generate tons of publicity.
Have a nice day!!
#1 is my hero
Pimp My Blog was a mighty fine idea if you ask me
Should have given you a call or something when the time was right, but I guess thats history brother !
I got my list too pal…You have to keep trying…
What about charging people to go for a ride in the ferrari?
shoemoney,
if you notice, so many people actually liek the gas station idea. I have had over 1,000 ideas myself, and know how most wont fly before i start. you gas idea is not half bad, but you would need to crunch the numbers, the novelty rating, etc… but it is a really good idea. you are exchanging humor for free.
I love This Blog
Thx.
ShoeMoney Petroleum Company – THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN SO AWESOME !
i would pay to do number one set it up!
i would also go out to get the gas haha
you could also charge for people to sit on a tower or something and shoot at the people in real life
Where can I make an investment for #4!
I’m surprised the used car idea was a flop. Couldn’t you have just used wordpress with an ebay plugin that would pull listings? Just have it pull listings based on zip code. Then you could maybe entice dealers to advertise on the pages for their particular model. Just a thought. I was thinking of this kind of thing for my area, but maybe now I’ll reconsider. Thanks for posting the bad ideas..not enough successful marketers do that. Makes the flops for the rest of us easier to swallow.
The one take-away from this is that to be successful, you need to learn how to think outside the box! Your imagination is definitely out there and creative!!
super ideas
That was quite inspirational. I just started working the internet so I’ve already prepared myself for many failures ahead. Fail forward fast is what I say
I would have probably gone ahead with the Babycalc.com. The concept is refreshing. SHoe money missed a trick there.
Tsk. Tsk. Next time try real estate.. in fact.. read “The Pizza Delivery Millionaire ” by Rick Vazquez.. I think you would enjoy it and might even learn a thing or two about the real way to make money
I have to hand it to you, you have a lot of patience and perseverance, qualities which will ultimately make you a success.
#4 is hilarious, im shocked that it did not work!
I gotta give it to you, you got alot of creative ideas whether they have worked or not.
Jeremy:
I’ll give you an A+ for trying (and I am sure any nuns you had in Catholic School would too)! You sound like a go-getter and I really admire that about someone who at least tries to go after a dream or a thought they had. Your failures are taking you one step closer to a great success – just don’t give up. That’s really what makes a success a success! The inability to never give up will ultimately yield a success for you. Just think about it, Edison used 5,000 different materials in trying to create the lightbulb, and now it seems everyone in the world can’t get enough of them. Abraham Lincoln ran for office nearly a dozen times, failed and finally, on the last try become one of the most famous, admired and accomplished Presidents in modern history. If you really want to make a fortune, pull your boat out of the docks and ride out in perfect timing to offer something that people need. In this recession, there is nothing more than people need now than hope and a chance for prosperity. Wrap your mind around that one – and I’ll bet my bottom dollar, you’ll come up with the idea that would be a “grand slam!” Best Wishes, Your Friend, Michael
I love the gas company idea. That is genius.
I am loving the gas idea, thing is I would totally go there so forget about city ordinance. I suck out about 16 gallons of gas every 1.5 weeks anyway, I would head out there with my dirtiest gas pumping outfit and let them fire away.
Although I would want to wear a helmet or something to protect any real injuries.
I can see a lot of Counterstrike kids out there wanting to spend a few bucks of their lunch money on this.
I think you are doing just fine.
Post is kind older, but it’s still nice to read and learn. Thanks
LOL – just came across this by chance – idea #1 is frickin funny!
teach me to make your way.email me asap.from:nicest lady in indonesia.
The shoemoney SEO contest is so funny.
No one can outrank you on that keyword.
Hey, I think you are a genius, how can anyone beat you for the shoemoney keyword? It’s impossible.
no its not it happen i seen it happen ppl did out rank him for shoemoney!
I think the intention behind several sites you have mentioned seems quite logical, it should have worked, especially the BabyCalc.com, I know there is a website which is still using this function and getting many members (babycenter.com).
Arey bhai! What a great idea to popular our web sites! Really this is an excellent! Especially the ninth point about babycalc.com is really mindboggling! I sincerely would like to follow jeremy’s advice! Thank you! (www.knoweverything.tk)
please do gas station paintball or some variation of it. that’s hilarious.
hehe, funny
failed business ideas are always entertaining to read. here’s some more:
#1 is the funniest one! ahaha!!
Hillaries i dont know how you tried all those things. I thought you are a smart guy lol
Hilarious – funny stuff!
That paintball idea is priceless i would defiantly sign up for a site like that. I think you could get around it by making it a drive in gas station with 2 doors so no paint balls could get out. You should give free gas away in some major city at one gas station and film the pandemonium and the huge traffic game and riots
I know the feeling about finding the perfect URL only to see it owned by someone else. I waited over a year for my one to be abandoned by the former owner and then I snagged it up.
Failure precede success!
http://tinyurl.com/cx534z
Ha ha you have had some crazy but genius ideas. Priceless, I liked the St.Marrys bar & grill that would have been crazy.
I would have gone to the St.Marys Bar & Grill. Sounded fun. I think it would be more popular if the customers got to spank the girls though.
It’s ideal to remind these business minded people about those worst habits in running their time to earn money. I have some tips on how you can earn goodly.
save trees and save earth bcoz starting global worming so plz plz save to
one optical is moniter and u speak is typening and every thing feature in opticals
withcamera
with mike
u watch in eyes
and u think is working also
I would’ve played the Ads or Not game! Cool ideas, anyhow. (By the way, I was hoping to register shoemoney.com)!
hello! The babes are here! This is my sexiest site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.
Great stuff! I have a friend who recently started an ad company wrapping gas tanker trucks with advertisements. Perhaps he can have the Ferrari girls drive the trucks, for an additional “pop” in eyeballs!
None of my ideas got right. Still finding the best shot to make money online. And this post really open my eyes!
@ Terrence,
you said:
“…I have a friend who recently started an ad company wrapping gas tanker trucks with advertisements. Perhaps he can have the Ferrari girls drive the trucks, for an additional “pop” in eyeballs!”
Cool idea I must say!
LoL, it’s hilarious yet innovative to give away gas from your own gas station. I would lik to know how it’s goin on, haha,,,
What a great post. I can really relate to this. From these 10, there are probabaly about another 1000 that never saw the light of day. A true entreprenuer. Love it. Thanks for making me laugh today.
I must say, after reading your idea about the paintball gas station – I couldn’t stop laughing. That’s got to be the greatest idea I’ve heard in my entire life. I’d surely pay to shoot helpless people trying to get a few gallons of free gas. That would be terrific. Not to mention an excellent stress reliever – and a surefire way to feel better about myself!
Thanks Shoe,
Christian
Problem is, a little free gas is not worth the paint stains and damage to your car from all the paint balls hitting it.
Brilliant ideas. I tend to do the same thing, come out with different ideas but never run with it. I do run with it sometimes but I find myself getting burned by always hitting a dead end.
Truly amazing.
Not only are these great learning experiences, but some great comedy material as well.
Keep up your excellent work!
-Ron
Too funny
I’d few similar ideas in past and still now got caught in same situation.
As a person who owns over 50 domain names, this post hits close to home!!
#9 – Sign up requires two emails. Email 1 for yourself and email 2 for a friend/relative who has access to your account in case the unthinkable happens. That way if the expecting mother does indeed have a miscarriage, the friend/relative can go in right away and nix the emails. A lot of people would love having that information sent to them – don’t keep it in the rubbish.
no 1 is simply the best idea, and the tenth’s just soo good enough :> Cheers for posting.
This post is helpful! Cheers for this one!
I dunno, I like the text dating. It sounds like fun. The hard part of course is getting people to feel safe. But if that was a pre-Twitter idea, things have changed.
lol, sounds like the type of ideas I have on a daily basis.
This hits really close to home. I have been in so many different MLMs and internet businesses, that I thought I was the only crazy one. Guess I’m not. I’m still trying to find my money machine, but guess I’m a little old fashioned. I would like to become a virtual assistant – accounting, financial services, data entry, blogging, graphic design, etc – but I’m not sure how to get started. I would love some FREE help if anyone has some suggestions. I’m working on a website now and hope to get it up and running and then figure out how to advertise it, with little investment, because I’m broke with no job. Thanks for uplifting my spirits.
Topless Chix lmao that is priceless. Keep up the creative ideas man you rock
The last one was indeed very funny. I just pray somebody start a gas station on this idea and we get some free gas at least.
Wow the funniest one was your Petroleum Company idea.
My brother made a baby calculator like you mentioned and it’s gotten him a lot of traffic and backlinks. It has really worked out for a source of income – linking to his baby-related website. But I can see how you would want nothing to do with that idea, after hearing your friends situation. That is sad.
Funny and very humourous. Laughing until my stomach explodes!
I think the worst way to make money online is ebay. You hear so much hype about ebay business kits and how much you can earn on ebay.
I would have to say that ebay is probably the worst idea to make money. Even though Im sure some people do I think it is a bad way because few can do it.
Oh man… that baby calc idea sounded pretty good but… what happened to your friend… real downer.
Can see how you’d wanna skip that one!
Years ago I bought a domain http://LeaveMeAllYourMoney.com the premise behind it being that people would leave me money in their wills and I’d promise to send postcards to their disinherited children/spouses telling them how, and what a good time, I was having spending it!
My surreal side tells me it still has potential
I just laughed my balls off at the paint ball gas station tid-bit.
Too freaking funny!
I too have had way more failures than success!
i got to read this too late.
gas station is the best !!
I have a list of about 600. I think anyone who does inetrnet marketing for real and makes a living suffers from ideas on crack. Most of us have ADD, OCD and we get our keyword tools and domain finders and we find a new million dollar niche every day.
We just forget that it takes 6- 1 year of work to make money or make the niche really work. So with my 600 niches will take 600 years.
Hey, anyone wanns buy some domains? They are all money makers, I promise!!!
Moe Bedard
Actually.. that one with the Ferrari I’m sure it will work in my country…but guess what..no money for ferrari
I like the concept of text messaging on a dating site. Maybe you give users free text msg. so people will flood the site.=p
Hahaha this is a really funny blog. Reminded me of myself. I had tons of (I think)good ideas but none of them ever materialized. Keep ‘em coming!
great article thank you
Some of those are really..bizarre
Surprising tho that the “car dealer” thing flopped…i read once what an immense money maker such a listing site is supposed to be..interesting stuff…
Btw. when is the “paintmytoenails.com” site going up? Cant wait for the live cam streams…
lol
ohhh yes, you really used to get very bad ideas to make money
, but i have even worst 
The tenth one is great! haha, and there’s lots of gas stations in the country.
And some of them I couldnt even imagine they exist. And they do
well i hope u get paid for every comment received in reply of your story….Maybe this is a gimmick that works
You made me laugh! But yeah, some creative people might be able to tweak some of your ideas and make them work, especially the ShoeMoney Petroleum Company. LOL!
Ideas are simple and never been thought by me lol, Shoe, how did you get this kind of ideas?
I also made money from my site http://www.wdirmag.com/, it’s about travel stuffs, last week I search on google for online ticketing services and email them about my site, propose an idea to describe their services in my article, and I said it’s limited spots.
You know what, I’ve got a lot of emails asking for discount, affiliate program, exclusive placement and now I’m confused to choose some of them. I’m still hold the respons to make them curious and willing to pay more
I friggin love this idea and would definitely have been a patron if I lived in the area…
“…called St. Marrys where it was like a church and the waitresses dressed like catholic school girls and like the nuns would be the managers and spank the waitresses if they were bad?!?”
And yes, right to hell with you mr shoe…
The st.marry’s idea would have worked in New Orleans as liberal a catholic city in America. Oh, i could see the lines outside the business, now.
Shoe,
I can admit publicly that I had the same idea as one of your flops, the SEO contest. Luckily, I did not run it for some reason. This is a great post, which shows how great ideas do not always work in praxis. I believe that the execution is as important as the idea itself ( or even more important ).
Haha #1 is funny. Some of the other ones could of been decent.
Well it’s fantastic to see a succesful im-guy telling about his less succesful concepts. It’s the creativity that does it man!
Fantastic to see a post like this!
Can I add one?
Make a controversy political opinion and let people know you’re from what company
I would have probably done #1 if i thought about it first! its hillarious!!! i could already see people pumping gas with like 5 changes of clothes on and a helmet…
Just reading Guy Kawaski’s latest book and it talks about how many people working in the Valley have failed. Seems to be more flops than hits but the hits outweigh the flops. A lot of it is cultural as well in how people look and judge failure. Some countries treat is as something commendable to have tried, others love to see people fail and the shame factor prevents people from ever trying.
This is pretty crazy great job and keep it up
I would have loved to see the paintball idea actually take off, that one would have been funny.
That free gasoline idea is awesome.:D
We should combine it with my free cars idea (ad supported cars, with lcd panels that would switch ads for big companies)
I once came out with bags that looked like eyeballs. “Eye Bags”, get it?
Took off as well as expected. EPIC FAIL.
heheheh shoemoney petroleum???
This is very interesting post, of course this post can get the attention of people cause we are talking about money, About the content it was nice some maybe some of them are funny but it’s amazing idea.
Holy cow, #1 was a riot! When and if you decide to kick this one back into gear, I’ll spend some serious cash taking shots!
man…the baby thing is a tough one.
Great list we have been trying a number of different avenues and really if you don’t try you can find the good one
I guess what most people do not understand is to be successful you need to have some failure as well.
That’s hilarious.. I love number 1..
so to sum it up Shoe, you failed you way to the top!!!!
so to sum it up Shoe, you failed your way to the top!!!!
Thanks a lot for sharing failures, they really gave us a motivational thought that there are some failures behind successful people and success won’t came over night.
Well Shoe money is here because he made his failures a stepping stone for success. Lesser souls would have quit the field.
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wow this post is super, i think a few of these 10 ideas can bring nice money even if you’ve added them in your black list; in the end it’s clear that success comes after a couple of failures…
These are 10 great ideas that gone wrong. It is hard to believe Shoe money could go wrong. But these failures made you tough to explore new avenues to make money.
Sooo true with baby birth site. was about to have a daughter and then found out she had a fatal birth defect after about 16 weeks. kept on getting e-mails for months after our baby was gone.
Honestly Jeremy, I didn’t really get the idea of the last one. How the “shooting part” will actually interest people? While as for the dating-text idea, I can’t help but smiling to “hear” you saying : “..but nobody sign up..”
I think you just lack on promotion there. Who would of think, sending 150 words online could make Twitter a giant network as it is now? Many still think the idea of tweet, is nothing but wasting time. But hey, being skeptical, didn’t allow them to profit like Twitter!
Btw, I have to comment on this: you seems to have a lot of money there. You spend thousand of dollar like buying candy. Is that, all from online earning?
And whenever you plan to create website, did you develop yourself, or you hire someone? Do you have any one in particular that u trust, or you just select any pro out there?
I’m curious to find out what happened with the outrank me SEO contet! Haha
Great contributions.
The paintball option seem interesting…but excellent insights on the article.
Get info sure wish I had time to spend on this great web page our business would grow so much faster
The paintball idea is awesome. I think you should pursue it.
Wow, I like some of the ideas. Keep up the good work, maybe this is something for the fure. Regards, DSB
That last one was a fricken excelent idea!!
hi
i thk you should go and with some of your ides.
after all you have over 70k followers in tweet. and one tweet will get you a few sign up on your dating site and it will SLOWLY but SURELY GROW.
Regards
Some great ideas you had.
St. Mary’s bar and grill. I could see it..and I am from Iowa. I would drive out there and spank a bad girl and have a few cold ones. I may have to check into that here in Iowa city. What do you think??
Interesting ideas
very nice ideas that we all should learn from it.
Thanks
Excellent blog. People who make it usually get lucky over being good at an idea. All the best.
wonder why I feel so happy reading this!
you know i am sure you ask any successful person not just in making money online but in any filed, mistakes are a part of the game. its the trial and error that gives us that experience that we so desperately need in order to succeed. however one thing is certain and i know that it dose reflect your personal journey Jeremy as well and that is no matter how many times you make mistake and fall, if you get up and try to use what you learned to progress to the next one, you will succeed. so don’t feel bad about those decisions. think of them as a ticket that you had to pay for in order to get one the plain. also i want to point out that it dose take certain out looks as yours to come out and tell the whole world that hey i made these decisions that landed me to no where. most people want to brag about their success, not their failure.
Oh boy, I probably have a top 20 list of flops, luckily all it takes is one good idea!
It’s been a joy viewing your site. Typically you hear about the same guru’s over and over. I have to be honest, I’ve never come across your name before. It’s obvious your doing something right. You are proof that the Internet is a powerful thing and anyone who wants to succeed online can do just that if they put their mind to it.
It’s great! Posted a link on my blog to encourage upstarts (including myself) to not give up.
Good to know others struggle sometimes too. but also good to know that success does follow if we keep at it.
very nice ideas that we all should learn from it.
Thanks
Feel lucky you only had 10. Hahaha Seems like most of them didn’t have to much energy put into them. I’ve got a laundry list of stuff I’ve done that has been miserable failures that I was 100% sure was going to work invested a crap load of time and energy into and FLOP!
The things that work out sure do make it all worth while though
Awesome post man.Great people always used to say when you have fear of failure list down the possible failures from others experience and never do that.It would be really helpful if you could post more like this not only you even others who have lost money by investing on things like above so that it can create an awareness to every one. Thank you for your suggestion
Another cost of education is in mistakes made, but hopefully learned from. Too bad you can’t get college credit for this education. Thanks for sharing.
What i dont understand is that all those sites you have have good PR. You sold them right. Might as well through some adsense on them for the hell of it right?
You have 10 FLOP ideas but you have a very successful “shoemoney” blog. Just one successful idea can make us rich. BTW, I think #9 is great, just need to provide easy unsubscribe link.
Excellent post.
I have learned over the years to “stick to what I know” which for me is Network Marketing.
While I own around 1,700 domains and some do OK my bread and butter has always been MLM/NWM so that is where I try and spend at least 75-80% of my time.
My blog shows the top ways I have used to earn over $8-million and recruit over 80,000 people.
thank you for your blog post.
J.R.
JR…you are so right. I just listened to an audio book by trump in which he said (paraphrasing) “you got to be stupid to go out on a limb and not know what you are getting yourself into” … it’s so true. However, if you have the capital to experiment and take a few qualified risk then by all means have a few experiments ….you just never know what will happen….my problem…take the risk w/out preparing for the risk.
man, i really like the paintball idea. I could probably get away with that in a hick town in Florida. Funny stuff.
Great idea about make money. It is inspire to make a good decision to make money from online blogging.
Thanks for this writings.
I am newcomer of your blog.
Hello Jeremy….Thx for sharing this posts…this post taught me many things…..
I have just started my journey as a blogger….Though its too early to say this i had a couple of bad experiences too….but one thing’s for sure “I am never gonna give up”
have a great day!
…& Jeremy i forgot to tell you something…. your achievement of earning $ 132,994.97 through adsense inspires alot….
I have received a cheque of $ 22.17 from adbrite recently…. though small i believe “the journey thousand miles begins with a single step”….
You know the baby site is great. I actually had signed up with one of those when I was pregnant and loved it. Maybe the answer was to just make it very EASY to unsubscribe when things go wrong. Women with healthy, successful pregnancies love the idea!
I too enjoy launching new innovative websites.
I also like registering memorable domain names in the hope to launching websites in the future.
My latest project which has had some very good reviews is http://www.appgiveaway.com
I am hoping to launch other websites.
There are no bad ideas. I think it’s worse if you don’t take any actions with those ideas.
Your creativity, even when it didn’t work out showed true promise.
Thx a lot for this post ShoeMoney. Now a know what I don’t need to do to earn money online. Thx again.
Interesting Ideas.It may teach a lesson for the coming online entrepreneur.
Very interesting post, will make sure not to do those in 2010
Your train of thought was very instructive to make money, but now the network is also very easy to make money.
Great article, but there are good making money ideas out there as well, just need to locate them.
Good article….But U never know if an idea is gonna work unless u try and test.
Pretty Interesting ideas. But i liked your view about law of averages. Try more stuff and if 50% gets right you will be successful.
I LOVE the catholic school girl one.. That is the hottest idea everrrr!!! But you should definitely try to find a different area.. I really think you make make a killing at that.
I opened the website http://www.toonmail.org and had it forward to my eBay store. I had the store 2 weeks and shut it down..
I was selling birthday letters from cartoon characters for kids.. I was making a killing in those 2 weeks, no sleep, orders like crazy.. Then eBay suddenly removed EVERY item I had for sale which was 300 items!! I almost pissed myself when I logged on… =*( A lawyer contacted them that works for Bagdarsian Productions- Alvin and the Chipmunks and said that I was copyrighting their work.. In which I did not believe that if I recreated the characters to look like theirs that it would be a problem. There is THOUSANDS of people on eBay selling personalized birthday invitations with cartoon characters on them from Spongebob and stuff… I guess I was just the idiot that choose Alvin and the Chipmunks.. The reason for the law suit- Bagdarsian Productions copyrighted the first fucking letter in our alphebet. They have copyrighted the letters A, S and T!!! Get that!! So I was in trouble for using those letters on the t-shirts of their characters.. Other than that I would’ve been fine, maybe? So in the end she settled for $200 and I am just finishing paying her that.. Thank god she didn’t try to take me to court over a couple letters wow.. So I am out on a few hundred bucks, no sleep, etc..
You have noooo idea how much work I put into those letters either omg.. I had to make the characters in photoshop, put them into a letter template that I made in photoshop… Then I would print it out and the text in photoshop doesn’t have enough qualities that I NEEDED in MS Word so I had to print out the letter then print it out again with the text and constantly change stuff to make it fit without being able to see if it fits until I print it… THEN scan them write a description for eBay upload pics on tinypic and eBay ugh etc… A lot of stuff and I lost it all… So in the end I could’ve posted everything up when my suspension was over but its too risky and I am tired of the chaos…
Anyways, check out a different area for the restaurant.. That’s hot shit! Good luck! =)
At least you are willing to admit your flops and you learned from your experiences. You have spent a lot of dough trying things out. Glad to see you found something that works for you. I hope that I can be as successful.